Old-fashioned card catalogs are among the
throwback features of San Diego’s central library, which opened in 1954. It replaced a library completed in 1902 at the same site on 8th and E streets.— Peggy Peattie

+Read Caption

Old-fashioned card catalogs are among the
throwback features of San Diego’s central library, which opened in 1954. It replaced a library completed in 1902 at the same site on 8th and E streets.
— Peggy Peattie

Ron Dismukes, 65, has been coming to San Diego’s central library three times a week for the last 36 years.
He met his wife there when he was doing research and she was a volunteer there. Peggy Peattie • U-T PHOTOS— Peggy Peattie

+Read Caption

Ron Dismukes, 65, has been coming to San Diego’s central library three times a week for the last 36 years.
He met his wife there when he was doing research and she was a volunteer there. Peggy Peattie • U-T PHOTOS
— Peggy Peattie

San Diego’s current central library gets practically zero love. It’s been called a “dump” and an “embarrassment” and something “that belongs in the Dark Ages.”

The library is scheduled to be replaced in a couple of years by a gleamingly new, $185 million facility in East Village, with many saying the change can’t come fast enough. Doesn’t it have any charms?

“I’m trying to figure out what I would miss,” said Suzanne Gatteau, who has worked at the downtown library as an aide for seven years.

She paused. She paused some more. She drew a blank. “We’re all going to be celebrating when the new one opens,” she said. “That’s going to be a Taj Mahal.”

And what’s wrong with the current building, you ask. Gatteau is no fan of the ventilation. Dust is a problem because of all of the old books. And then there are the roaches.

But back in 1954, the library got rave views when it opened. The praises included the following assessment in The San Diego Union: “In services, features, convenience, it sets an example for the rest of the nation ... Many feel the San Diego library will set the pace for library design all over the country.”

The $2 million library replaced what had become an outgrown Carnegie library, which had been completed in 1902 at the same site on Eighth and E streets. The 1954 library boasted three floors and a then-whopping 144,524 square feet. (By comparison, the future central library is expected to have 294,673 square feet.)

Today, if you look hard enough, some of the features that wowed people back then can be seen.

Columns rise near the lobby entrance, adorned in green tile imported from Italy. Outside, there’s a detailed terrazzo at the entrance. On the facade, there are two bas-relief sculptures done by a noted San Diego artist at the time, Donal Hord.

There also are quirky, throwback features that you won’t find in more modern libraries. How about phone booths, for instance? This one has two. Old-fashioned, wooden card catalogs can be found here. Soundproof rooms were added so people could listen to — get this — albums.

Not everybody wants to get out the wrecking ball, though. Bruce Coons, executive director of the Save Our Heritage Organisation, said the library would be beautiful if restored.

It’s been the victim of “hard use and indifferent care over the years,” he said. The interior became jammed with items, robbing the library of the big, airy feeling that its architects had hoped to create, Coons added.

The library became outdated very quickly, critics said. As early as the mid-1970s, a new central library was being talked about.

There wasn’t enough room to house the library’s always growing collection. Those soundproof rooms? They’re used for storage these days. Even the puppet show theater in the children’s section of the library can’t be used for, well, puppets. It also became a storage area.

Many of the available items are shelved in the library’s two basement floors, which are off-limits to the public. If a book is down there, a worker has to retrieve it for the patron.

Over the years, the building has suffered from a number of infrastructure problems. In 1986, for example, a heating pipe burst and 200 history books were soaked with water.

“The whole library is falling apart,” San Diego library director William Sannwald said at the time. “We need a new central library — fast.”

In 1990, the Public Library Association held its convention in San Diego and Sannwald didn’t want any of the 5,000 participants to see the central library. He made certain no activities took place at the site.

Now, pardon the cliché, a new chapter is being written.

While ground was recently broken for the new library, backers still need to raise $30 million more to fully fund the project. What happens to the current central library is unknown, but even its longtime users aren’t feeling all that nostalgic.

Nick Stamon, 87, of Kensington, visited the library on the first day it opened. He wasn’t all that impressed, he remembers. He didn’t like the color schemes. Newer libraries have much more of an aesthetic appeal, Stamon said.

“No, I won’t shed a tear” when the library closes, he said.

Ron Dismukes, 65, another patron, plans to be the first person at the door when the new library opens. “I’m so looking forward to it.”

But he’ll still get a little misty-eyed over the loss of the present library. He met his future wife here in 1974. Dismukes, who lives in Little Italy, still comes here several times a week.

“It’s like saying goodbye to an old friend,” he said. “It’s not just mortar and stone. It’s a living organism, and it’s been faithful to us for a long time.”